PACIFIC SHOWDOWN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 August 1942, Page 3

PACIFIC SHOWDOWN

SEEMS TO BE AT HANI) ACCORDING TO NEW YORK WRITER. IMPORTANCE OF SOLOMONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.50 a.m.) NEW YORK, August 27. “A Pacific showdown seems to be at hand,” says the ‘‘New York Times military correspondent, Mr Hanson Baldwin, commenting on the Solomons campaign, “which may alter the finelydrawn balance of power’ in the Pacific, thus affecting the entire course of the war in the Pacific theatre.” Mr Baldwin explains that it is clear that the Marines and the Navy are tenaciously clinging to their footholds in Guadalcanar and other islands of the southern Solomons, while the American Air Force is operating from one or more of the recently conquered fields. “This big asset is enhanced by the proximity of the Solomons to other Allied bases in Australia, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia and elsewhere, whence long-range bombers are supporting our naval forces,” Mr Baldwin observes. “The fact that both sides are throwing considerable naval forces into action stresses the strategic importance of the battle, because the Solomons and Dieppe proved that invasion and occupation are possible only if naval superiority can be maintained. Therefore the Japanese attacks on Guadalcanar and abortive Japanese landing attempts are considerably less important than the naval clash.” Concluding, Mr Baldwin says: “The Solomons battle may be the preface to other action elsewhere. Since June, when Japan chose Midway and the Hawaiian Islands as her objective, she has not struck anywhere until now, but the Japanese do not entertain a passive concept of war. The Coral Sea battle preceded Midway—the Solomons battle may precede an attempt against Hawaii, unless successive defeats have too greatly depleted the Japanese Navy.”